How creators make money livestreaming on TikTok, YouTube, Amazon, and more
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- Career prospects for livestreaming creators extend far beyond the gaming space.
- Sleepfluencers, lawyers, rappers, and more make healthy livings on the strength of viewer tips.
- TikTok Live has become a way for creators to make money as the platform leans into livestreaming.
Livestreaming has surged in recent years.
As more creators from a diversity of genres embrace livestreaming, some describe the medium as a nostalgic way to intimately connect with fans in a fleeting era of TikTok swipes. Many creators also credit livestreaming as their chief source of income.
Besides heavyweights like YouTube and Twitch, TikTok has also put resources into its product where users can livestream. TikTok Live has become a way for many creators to make money.
How much can you make on TikTok Live? One creator, sleepfluencer Jakey Boehm, earned $34,000 in one month from TikTok Live, where fans pay to thwart his rest – turning on neon lights, for example, or loud music.
Read more about how Boehm makes money on TikTok livestreams
An ASMR creator said she got paid about $20 and $300 each time she goes live on TikTok.
Brands are also embracing TikTok Live, paying three times as much for sponsored streams as compared to static posts. That said, social shopping – a massive industry in Asia – has yet to deliver in the west.
But YouTube and Twitch still generally remain the favorites in the industry for earning potential.
Lawtubers, or YouTube creators who share pro legal analyses, saw massive earnings spikes during the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial, with the platform's three top creators each banking six figures by streaming proceedings daily.
Read more about exactly how much 3 top law YouTubers made from livestreaming the trial
The majority of these earnings come from Super Chats, a tipping tool unveiled by YouTube in 2017 that enables viewers to have their comments emphasized during broadcasts.
In addition to Lawtubers, and VTubers who use virtual avatars, pastors are another top-earning contingency when it comes to Super Chat, per Playboard, which uses bots to track viewer spend. One top YouTube televangelist, the Nigerian pastor Jerry Eze, made $80,000 on his YouTube channel in one month, he said, with the majority coming from Super Chat.
Read more about top-earning livestreaming pastors on YouTube and controversy they've faced
Other creators are finding their own lucrative niches in the live space.
Musician Harry Mack said fans can suggest different words he might use in his freestyle raps, with monthly streams fetching between $4,000 and $8,000. (Read more about how he built his business.)
Insider has spoken with a handful of creators, startups, and industry insiders about the rise of livestreaming and how creators are making money by going live.
How streamers make money on TikTok Live:
- Why brands pay up to 3 times more for sponsored TikTok Live videos than for static posts from top influencers
- A TikToker makes money by letting fans pay to disrupt his sleep with sounds like a duck quacking. Here's how much he earns.
- How an ASMR creator makes up to $300 per livestream
How streamers are making money on YouTube:
- How much a YouTuber with about 200K subscribers earns in a year from videos about celebrity legal issues
- YouTube channel LegalBytes has surged by livestreaming the Depp vs. Heard trial — and earned $5,000 in a week
- The Depp v. Heard trial led to huge income boosts for law YouTubers. Here's how much some of the top livestreamers earned.
- How YouTuber Harry Mack built an audience of 2M subscribers with freestyle rap and what he earns livestreaming
- A YouTube pastor who prays over requests and touts miracles is making over $80,000 per month
- YouTube televangelists earn tens of thousands of dollars in live tips, but one prominent pastor got cut off from monetization for an anti-vax video
How streamers are making money on Instagram:
- How one micro influencer uses live shopping as part of her affiliate marketing strategy
- How one Instagram creator made $1,000 in about one week by livestreaming and getting "Badges"
- How influencers are getting paid hundreds of dollars to go live with "Bonuses"
- How some influencers are landing sponsored livestreams for hundreds — even thousands — of dollars
How streamers are making money on Twitch:
- How a Twitch channel known for 'Dungeons and Dragons' earned over $9 million in the last 2 years
- How much a Twitch streamer earns in a month combining gaming and ASMR
- How a Twitch streamer with over 29,000 followers makes $2,800 each month
How streamers are making money on Amazon Live:
- How an influencer has made 6 figures on Amazon by livestreaming
- Leaked emails reveal what Amazon offers to pay influencers to post shoppable livestreams, and its requirements
- Why Amazon's live-shopping program has struggled to win over influencers, even though it's handing out bonus payments
- How an influencer is making almost as much money using Amazon Live as she is doing brand deals